A Tape For Roger
by Ophelia's Flood
Summary: The best and most beautiful part of Angel came out while she was dying, and we forgot it. I don't want that to ever happen again, so I am making this tape for Roger, to remember how Mimi died.
1. An Apologetic Prelude

_(Lights come up on a room that greatly resembles a theater of some sort. There is a large stage facing us, which we will come to in a moment. Rows of seats stretch away into infinity, mostly cast in shadow. A balcony hangs overhead, inlaid with what seems to be a mix of Greek frescoes and Egyptian hieroglyphics; several private boxes sit high up on the walls, hung with velvet silk and gold brocade. In the very back of the theater, a pair of doors is set into the walls; both are open, and through them drift every sound imaginable. Cars, conversation, airplanes and gunfights, lions roaring, birds screeching, angels singing. Life itself can be glimpsed through those open doors._

_The theater is separate, silent, apart from all of that chaos that is Life. The stage is a magnificent thing. It bears a remarkable – and not accidental – resemblance to the Nederlander Theater in New York City, with a wide open space and a series of small, elevated platforms along the left and back walls. The first impression is that a Broadway hurricane has hit; discarded theater props lay all around, scattered carelessly, with a sort of loving abandon. Leaning against a wall is an antique rifle draped with a tricolor sash taken right from Les Miserables, as though someone sneaked onstage and removed it from the carnage at the barricade. A life-size dragon marionette is slumped in a corner, mouth open, wings up; a bunch of little blue demons and little white angels dangle on strings from the rafters. An impressive collection of rapiers and lances are shoved in a corner, some hanging on nails, some stacked in a haphazard pile. Shields and banners depicting the crest of a thousand royal families are strewn everywhere among the dusty treasure. Folders and notebooks crammed with papers are everywhere; musical scores, books with their bindings coming undone, are stacked in swaying towers over most of the stage. Papers form snowdrifts, while coins and shiny bits of metal form mountains; the entire wonderful mess is brought into bright, vivid illumination as a spotlight swings down from the ceiling and sways like a pendulum until it settles. There is a flash of movement as an owl soars out from between the rafters, startled. _

_The spotlight's beam eventually stills, brightly haloing a microphone on a small, thin pole that has appeared at the front of the stage, between the footlights, as if by magic. There is a rumble of sound as people begin to stream into the theater; the doors slam shut and suddenly all sounds echo and rebound in the wide empty space, as though it has been cut off from the rest of the world. The audience takes their seats. There is not a large number of them, only enough to fill up a few rows, but they all sit near the front and stare expectantly at the stage._

_After a few moments, in which a banging and crashing can be heard, _OPHELIA_ enters stage left, wading through her treasures. She will leave her appearance to the audience's imagination. She can be human, if you like; if not, she can be a werewolf or a dragon, a bird or a bull. She doesn't much care; it is her voice that is important. After a few minutes of struggle, _OPHELIA _reaches the microphone. Clearing her throat, she leans in to press her mouth against it.)_

OPHELIA: Test… Test one-two-three… (_Beginning to sing)_ Anything thing but that… this is weird… very weird… I'm so mad that I don't know what to do… fighting with microphones…

_She stops herself with an embarrassed laugh, just as a few people in the audience are beginning to sing along with her. They laugh as well. She gives a nervous wave, which is met with cheers._

OPHELIA: Thank you… thanks for coming, all of you… (_She clears her throat)_ Okay. First of all, I'd like to welcome you here, to this little corner of my mind, which has been specially made up for this purpose – (_She glances around ruefully)_ though maybe not cleaned up just yet… sorry about that, folks. This is kind of important… you see, I called you all here today because you've read my fic. Or maybe you're going to read my fic in the future. Whether or not you've reviewed, you're here because my stories will, in some way, shape, or form, come into your lives. Not in any meaningful way, that is, I'm not messing with fate, you see…

_She stops herself and shakes her head as if to clear it. Someone in the audience shouts out "Ge' on with it," reminiscent of Monty Python. _OPHELIA_ shades her eyes against the brightness of the spotlight and smiles._

OPHELIA: Yeah. Well, I called you all here because you've read my stories. And you've probably started to notice a pattern in my plots…You see, there's something you have to understand. I've been writing fanfiction for a few years now. It started out as a sort of way to practice my writing skills, but once I got good enough that I felt like I didn't need that anymore, I stopped. But I liked writing fanfiction. It was fun. Addicting, even. So I started to use it as an outlet for all the angst and anger and sadness that I might have been feeling at any given time.

_Cries of agreement and encouragement come from the audience, as well as a smattering of scattered applause. _OPHELIA _acknowledges the audience with a wave._

I'd been in three or four fandoms before I found Rent. And I'd written all kinds of fics, just about every genre and classification imaginable – and I figured something out. You see, I have a very high standard for myself. I don't write a character doing anything unless I can see that character actually doing it. I stay away from alternate universes and screwed-up timelines unless I'm sure I know how the characters really would react in any situation. And it's hard to get to know a character through a movie or a TV show, because you can only work with what they give you. For instance, I know how incredibly awesome Roger is – (_this is met by screeching high-pitched fangirl screams from the audience. _OPHELIA_ smiles and waits until it quiets down before continuing)_ but I don't know how he met Mark, where he's from, anything! And I don't like to make that stuff up because it might change who his whole character would be. And I figured out it's hard to know about someone's sense of humor unless you know them really well. I mean, think of it this way – every single person on this earth will react to the same joke in different ways. But if you take away their loved ones, there's pretty much only one reaction. So I started – and kept on – writing angst, because I honestly didn't know how to write anything light or humorous. And several great writers have told me to write what I know! So, yeah…

OPHELIA: Look, this meeting was called because, thus far, every single fic I've posted – and most of the ones I haven't – deal with Mimi dying.

_There is a violent, but mixed, reaction from the audience. There are some wild cheers, mingling with loud booing. It seems that the audience has definitely noticed, and while some enjoy it, some do not. _OPHELIA_ shrinks nervously back from the outburst, but regains her courage and continues_

OPHELIA: Ahem. Yeah. Well, that's why I called you here. (_She puts a hand to her throat as though loosening an imaginary collar, her bashfulness painfully evident.)_ It started out as an accident, I swear – and, well, I called you all here today to – apologize.

_Again the reaction from the audience is mixed. There are some disapproving shouts and some whistles of approval; _OPHELIA_ does not back down, however. Instead, her expression grows determined._

OPHELIA: No, I take that back. I'm not apologizing. I think I write good stories, and I _like_ to write angst. But – I just want you to know I'm aware of it, okay? I'm Rent-obsessed, I'm a diehard shipper, and I don't want to write about gay romance because I don't know what it's like. So I naturally turned to Mimi/Roger, and I naturally let my predisposition for angst get the better of me. I know it's repetitive, but I like to write these kinds of stories. If you like it, or if you don't like it, or if you can think of something better, tell me, please – there's always that chance that something you say will wake that rabid little beast inside my brain and something wonderful will be the result. (_The audience rumbles its approval)_ Thanks. So, I just wanted to let you know that – I'm not normally this repetitive, but Rent just happens to lend itself to angst _really_ well – (_There is wild cheering and scattered applause)_ – as I'm sure you've discovered for yourselves. So, hopefully my writing will get less fatal over time, and until then, I crave your indulgence – excuse my wacky eccentricities, and I'll overlook yours. We're all insane. Some of us are just better at hiding it.

_Again the audience claps and cheers, this time explosively, with whistles of appreciation and bouts of laughter. _OPHELIA _smiles in response and lifts her hand in a signal; the angels and demons hanging from the ceiling suddenly come to life and flutter away, causing the audience to gasp in wonder. They vanish, and an immense projector-screen slowly descends along the back wall of the theater, as an old-fashioned crank camera, much like Mark's, rolls out from the wings on a wheeled stand. _OPHELIA _catches the camera and points it towards the screen._

OPHELIA: Thank you for listening, and I hope you'll come again. (_A pause)_ But before we venture into the story, a brief introduction: it has taken me months to write. It is my masterpiece, my obsession, my poetic _piece de resistance_. But a warning, all arrogance and self-favor aside – you will cry. It is long, and torturous, and it rips out your soul. You will come away feeling cold and sick to your stomach and ready to cry – I did, writing it. A warning – be careful. It _hurts_. Angst of the first degree, but I don't want to call it angst, because that implies a degree of cheesiness I tried to keep out. But it is painful, and it is sad. (_Again a pause, a brief shake of the head. The brilliant smile reappears.)_ So, without further ado…

_The lights go out._


	2. We Begin

There was a soft whirring sound and a flicker of light.

A white slate grew against the dusty wall, a flickering like a spotlight in the eyes or the sun on water that rippled and churned. Then, a loud, dusty click, and an image slid into place, a dark strip of the New York skyline seen through a window grimy with years and snow.

There was silence.

A face entered into the picture, a small scowl set beneath a pair of piercingly blue eyes that blinked owlishly behind a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, that bore lines that testified they had not been lit by a smile in a very long time. Around the neck was wound a faded, ratty white-and-blue striped scarf; tassels hung from the ends that were constantly twisted and pulled by long, white fingers.

The man entered the picture with a nervous self-consciousness, straightening his faded jacket, worrying at his scarf, staring fiercely at his feet, and sat down so that the starlit sky was concealed behind his head. He ran a hand through hair that was almost bleach-blonde; he blinked, dropped his scarf, reached out and adjusted something that could not be seen. The frame jilted slightly to the left and fell back into place.

The young man cleared his throat.

"I am making this tape," he said suddenly, "For Roger."

He blinked again, seemingly taken aback at his own boldness. His voice sounded tinny through rusted speakers. "Test one-two-three, test one-two-three," he said timidly, then shrugged, making a small wave of his hand that clearly said _to hell with formalities._

"I am making this tape for a lot of reasons," he corrected himself. "But mostly, I am making this tape for Roger."

He cleared his throat again, searching for words, his brow furrowed in concentration.

"I am making this tape so that Roger will remember. I know you'll want to forget –" he was addressing the camera directly now, as if pleading it for understanding. "I know you'll want to forget, you'll try to forget, but it's important – I think it's important – that you remember."

He took a deep breath and gritted his teeth, as though in pain.

"We forgot about – April." the name tore itself from him as with a physical effort. "We tried to forget about her, and we did. We shouldn't have, but we did." His hands twisted nervously in his lap. "Angel – we remembered, but we didn't remember all of it, only the parts we wanted to see, the parts we kept on film. Collins was the only one of us who remembered her in the last month of her life – when she was at her bravest and her happiest and most loving. And after a while, even Collins drowned himself in a vodka bottle and forgot."

"I am making this tape," he continued, the words coming a little easier now, "Because that part of Angel, the best and most beautiful part of her, came out while she was dying, and we don't have that part of her anymore. It's gone forever, and I don't – I don't want that to happen, ever again."

"I am making this tape," he said between clenched teeth as though fighting a monstrous battle to form the words, "To remember how Mimi died."

There was a moment of silence when the only noise was the whir and click of the camera as it waited to be burdened with memories. The man onscreen doubled over for a moment, putting his elbows on his knees, and buried his face in his hands. He pushed his glasses up to his forehead and breathed deeply, audibly. When he straightened up again, he was shaking slightly and a drop of blood trembled on his lip where he had bitten it to keep himself from crying.

"I want you to remember how she died," he said thickly, his voice shaking as well as his hands. "I want you to remember how little pain she was in, how much she laughed, how many times you told her you loved her. I want you to remember, because – Angel died in a hospital bed with white blankets and machines and doctors that lied through their fucking teeth every minute of every day. But Mimi told you she loved you and fell asleep as you whispered it back into her ear. I want you to remember that."

He fell silent again for a moment, squeezing his eyes tight shut, clenching his hands into fists. When he looked up again, his eyes gleamed brighter than before, and there were welts on his palms where he had dug his nails into them. "I want you to remember that you _can_ love," he said firmly, "because you're going to feel like you can't. I want you to stop thinking that it's your love that killed her – and I know you do think that," he added bitterly. "I've heard you say it in your sleep." He breathed in deeply, and exhaled in a sigh that sounded like a rush of static. "I want you to remember – I want you to _know_, the way I know it – that it was your love that helped her stay alive as long as she did. Hell, there were days when it looked like – when she was just going to fade away and the only thing keeping her holding on was holding your hand."

He lifted his glasses, rubbing his hand across his eyes in a fierce, slashing motion, though his expression was not angry when he put his glasses on again. "I don't know all of it," he said, and his voice was thick and raw with unshed tears, "But you do. I'll tell what I know, and you'll fill in the rest of it in your mind – you'll have to, because memories are a lot like love." He smiled bitterly. "That's pretty damn poetic, huh? Memories are like love. They smack you in the face when you don't expect it, you can't get rid of them no matter how hard you try, and they put you through the sweetest hell any man can ever die in."

Mark smiled, and it was achingly bittersweet and his eyes could barely be seen through his glasses that had become fogged and wet.

"The first thing I remember was this one morning in January of last year…"

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Roger woke slowly, stretching luxuriously as the dark waters of sleep parted before him and he drifted upwards into a cold gray morning, the sun barely beginning to sparkle between the skyscrapers out of his window, moonlight still captured by the dust on the floor and walls. One of his arms was twisted up in a thin, ragged blanket that failed to shield him from the chill; he slowly worked it free, filled with a great warmth of contentment despite the dark and the cold and the gloomy winter day stretching out in front of him.

The thought occurred to him, as it occasionally did, how wonderful it was to be waking up without the splitting headaches, the constant trembling, the paralyzing nausea of withdrawal and cravings. It occurred to him that part of his unreasoning joy was derived from looking back on his life and seeing how far he had come. After all, dawn was an hour to think, to contemplate – or so Mark said every once in a while. But then, Mark was full of that poetic crap.

Roger rolled over onto his shoulder, propping himself upright and looking down at the sleeping form next to him. He had to bite his lip to keep a ridiculous grin from breaking out on his face and he knew that his contentment came from waking up next to the girl he loved while the rest of the world was melancholy, from waking up with her warmth in his arms while the universe was cold.

He watched Mimi's sleeping face, listened to her quiet breathing, gently reached out and brushed a stray strand of hair away from her eyes. His touch must have wakened her, for her breathing quickened, and her eyes fluttered open as he pulled his hand away. No amount of self-control could keep him from smiling now and, seeing his obvious happiness, she smiled slightly, sleepily, in return.

"You're perky this morning," she yawned, waking up slowly, allowing him to draw her into a warm embrace. "What's the occasion?"

"Nothing. I just feel good, you know?" He rested his chin on top of her head, one hand tangled in her messy hair.

"Not really." He released her, and she drew back until she looked up at him from arm's length, grimacing. "Personally, my head is killing me. Probably from having all those lights shining in my eyes last night."

"And from not getting home until two in the morning," he reminded her gently. He was still smiling, but a seed of ice had fallen in the pit of his stomach, and a gentle shiver crept along his spine.

"Mmm." She rested her head on his shoulder, tugging at the blankets trapped underneath him. "Lucky I'm off tonight, at least."

"You could find another job," he suggested, without much hope. They had been through this conversation several times before, without much luck.

"And do what in the meantime?" she asked sleepily. "Hang around here and just take stuff from you and Mark? No thanks. I'd rather not live off stale Captain Crunch for the rest of my life." She laughed quietly – then turned her head as the laugh became a hacking cough.

Roger felt a hideous cold grip him, that froze the very air in his lungs and clenched his stomach in blind fear. The contentment he had been feeling a moment before shriveled up and died away, to be replaced by paranoia and a rampant terror that pounded, pounded, pounded against the inside of his skull with the beating of his heart –

Mimi's coughing eased, and she lay curled up against him, panting in an effort to regain her breath, shivering slightly in the frigid morning. Roger rolled off the bed, pulling the blanket up around her shoulders, himself breathing quickly in an effort to calm his racing heart. "You're sick," he managed, his voice trembling slightly, as she turned to face him. "Go back to sleep, okay? I'll be back in a bit."

"I'm fine," she muttered rebelliously, but she pulled the blanket tighter about her shoulders and leaned back into his pillow. "Come back soon," she murmured, her eyes already closing. "It's cold when you're gone."

Roger was standing up now, one hand on the doorframe, the other in his pocket and shaking. "I'm just going to – I'm going to find Mark," he lied, watching with bated breath as her entire body relaxed into sleep before slipping out into the loft and closing the door silently behind him.

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The picture tilted a bit, and the man in the center of the frame scowled at it with a red-eyed glare, reaching out to adjust it before he continued. "I'd gone out to get some food for breakfast," he recalled, his nervous hands falling still for once as he tried to remember. "I was only gone for about half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes. Roger was still asleep when I left." A shadow of emotion darkened his face. "When I came back…"

"The place was a madhouse. I opened the door and tripped over Roger's guitar. It looked like he'd been trying to shove it under the door or something – it was wedged in against the door and the wall, and one side was all scratched from where he'd jammed it in. I sort of freaked out right away – I knew that if Roger's guitar was being mistreated, then either Mimi was in some serious trouble or Roger was legally insane." His mouth twitched into something that was too pained and acidic to be called a smile. "A little bit of both, in fact."

"The loft had been destroyed. All the furniture had been knocked over or shoved out of place, stuffing from the couch had been shoved into holes in the wall, there was a couch cushion wedged into a broken corner of the window, and even a blanket taped over a place where the glass was cracked. And Roger was just lying there, in the middle of the floor, staring up at the canvas that covers the giant hole in our ceiling."

Mark grimaced as the memory came back to him with full force. "I panicked. I thought he'd started using drugs again, or that he'd fallen off something and smacked his head, or that he'd just plain cracked. So I ran over to him and kind of dragged him up. I was asking him all these questions, and he just kind of stared at me. He had that blank look – the same one that he had after April – and it scared the shit out of me." He gnawed thoughtfully on a fingernail for a moment. "I wanted to slap him in the face – I was shouting at him, over and over, trying to get some kind of reaction, _anything_ out of him, anything at all." He paused, his face falling into something resembling despair.

"Finally I stopped yelling, and he just looked at me, like he was trying to figure out if I was really there. He told me that it was too cold – he kept repeating that, over and over, that it was cold and he had tried to start a fire but couldn't find anything to burn. When I asked him what the hell he had done to the place – and that's what I asked him, in those exact words – he said he'd been trying to make it warmer, to keep the winter wind out. He just kept saying that – 'It's too cold in here! She said she was cold' – and at first I thought he was insane. That explained the mess, though – he'd been trying to make it warmer, trying to keep the cold air out. I made him sit on the couch – which was shoved up next to the door, by the way – and I asked him questions, trying to get a coherent answer. It took almost an hour."

His expression took on a haunted aspect, a shadow of despair. "It took him a long time to calm down enough to make sense. He told me that Mimi was sick, she had a headache and a cough. I told him it was nothing – I thought it _was_ nothing – cause ever since that Christmas he's been absolutely terrified for Mimi, paranoid to the point of insanity when he thought she might be leaving him. I managed to convince him that she would be fine, so that when she woke up an hour later, he didn't stare at her any more than usual."

The haunted quality in his eyes still remained, but he managed a small, sad smile at that. "You never were too great at hiding what you were thinking, Rog," he joked feebly. "You stared at her an awful lot when you thought she wasn't looking, didn't you? Oh, she was looking all right – she knew you did it. She told me once that it was adorable." he shrugged. "I wouldn't care for it myself, but – hey, there's no accounting for taste." He tried to laugh, and failed miserably as his hands resumed their constant motion.

He cleared his throat again, trying with a visible effort to bring himself back to the matter at hand. The shadow of some inward struggle flitted across his face, and when he spoke again, it was with great difficulty, as though he longed to talk about something else, anything else.

"I told him that she just had a cold, it was nothing, it would go away in a day or two." He clenched his hands on his knees. "It was the only thing I could have told him, because – well, because I was scared out of my fucking mind that he was going to cut his wrists from sheer terror if I told him anything else. Roger couldn't handle losing her, and he knew he couldn't handle it, and he didn't even want to try. So I told him that he wasn't losing her. And he believed me. Or, at least, he tried to believe me." He breathed deeply, bracing himself for some ordeal. "But then a week or two went by, and she didn't get any better. If anything, her cough got worse."

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"Are you _insane_?"

Mimi stood with her arms crossed over her chest, glaring across her apartment at Roger through narrowed eyes, not even flinching as his voice reached levels of volume that rivaled the thunder crashing outside the window. "No, _Roger_, I am not insane," she snarled back at him, "_You're_ the one who's out of your mind!"

"But I'm just –"

"Who says that you have any right to tell me to do anything?" she snapped. "If I want to go out, why the hell _can't _I? If I want to throw myself off the roof of the fucking building, there's nothing you can do about it! I'm not a baby, Roger! I can take care of myself! Why the hell shouldn't I do what I want?"

Roger felt chills of fear wracking his body, but he held his ground, hands clenched loosely into fists at his sides, teeth gritted tight to prevent the words in his mind from spilling out, spilling over. _Because it's cold and raining and you still have a fucking cough,_ he thought fiercely, but bit his tongue, didn't say it because he knew it would sound stupid. She was wearing the top she usually wore to work; it exposed a good deal, and Roger's hands tightened as he noticed her ribs visible through her unnaturally pale skin.

Fear crashed over him; but he twisted it in his mind, he wrestled with it, and it burst into anger, into inarticulate rage. Anger was better than fear. Anger could be controlled.

"Oh, sure, go do what you want," he snarled fiercely. "I can just imagine the kinds of things you do in that whorehouse you call a club!"

Or so he thought.

Mimi just stared at him, her mouth hanging open slightly, looking as though she'd been stabbed in the back. Roger suddenly became aware of the anger that was _radiating_ off her, like tangible heat, and he knew that if they had not been standing on opposite ends of the room she would have slapped him so hard his teeth would have fallen out. He flinched involuntarily at the thought, raising a hand to his cheek. With the heat of her glare fixed on him, he could almost feel the stinging bruise.

His movement released the shock that had gripped Mimi for a few seconds; she continued to stare at him, anger mingling with hurt now in her eyes, and Roger could see a glint of wetness on her face that reminded him of the rain outside.

"God, Roger, why do you have to be so fucking _paranoid_?" she choked out, looking betrayed. "After all this – all the shit we've been through – God, you're _hopeless_! If you're so eager for me to run off and stab you in the back, maybe I will! Just to give _you_ a taste of what it feels like!"

She turned on her heel, and he stood there stupidly, stunned by her outburst, mouth agape like an idiot, face blank. He stiffened, afraid that she would make good her threat, plunge back out into the storm and come back at one in the morning, wet, frozen, and dying –

A door slamming interrupted his thoughts, and he snapped back to himself, looking hastily at the door to the outside world; but he could see the key in the lock, it had not been opened.

_Thank God_. She had only retreated to her room. That, at least, he could deal with.

"Mimi," he murmured quietly, still standing pressed up against the wall of the apartment, staring at the closed door across the rain-washed darkness of empty space. "Mimi…"

He began to move slowly, lethargically, pushing himself away from the rotten wood of the wall and stumbling across the apartment until he stood in front of the door that hid her retreat. He pressed his forehead against the damp wood, vaguely noticing the coolness of it, its icy touch lost in the chill that cloaked his entire body.

"Mimi," he called again, louder this time, trying to make her hear him above the thunder and the rain. He fell silent, listening for a reply; the thunder around him broke, and he heard, very softly, the sound of sobbing seeping from under the door, frantic tears punctuated every few minutes by a deep, painful cough.

He let his hand slide down the wood until it rested on the doorknob, but didn't enter, afraid to face what lay behind that rotting portal. "I'm sorry," he said loudly, the words not nearly so difficult as he had anticipated them to be.

What was much harder was the whisper that came from the bottom of his heart, because he was always afraid that it would be the last time he said it.

"I love you."

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Mark's hands start to move again, his fingers twisting about each other, pressing his palms together and pulling them apart in a rhythm that seems strangely familiar, like a child's game. "There were some really hard times we went through then," he recalls slowly. "I was going through a bad spell with Buzzline, there wasn't much money coming in when there was any at all. Roger's worry had evolved into full-fledged psychotic paranoia, and of course that made him irritable as hell. You always get mad when you're scared," he said thoughtfully, falling easily into talking to Roger directly. "I guess it comes from your punk rocker days or something. Fear makes a coward, anger makes a man. Some kind of shit like that."

He disentangled his hands for a moment, raising one to push the glasses up on the bridge of his nose. "You always got mad when you were scared, and you always took that anger out on whoever was closest. Usually that was me." He shrugged, and it was a nonchalant forgiveness, a brushing away of all past grievances or wounds.

"I got used to it, after a while. Mimi wasn't used to it, though, and you acted like a fucking homicidal moron when you were around her. I knew it was cause you were afraid for her, but she didn't. There were some nasty fights – I don't know much about that, cause I was always in the loft, but I could hear the screaming."

A bitter smile emerged on his face. "One thing I _do_ know is that the fights always ended the same way. Someone would say something incredibly stupid or insulting, she'd run away or lock herself up somewhere, and you'd follow her like a lost puppy until she forgave you." He laughed, and it was a bitter, harsh sound, without a touch of mirth.

"You've always been a softie at heart," he told the camera matter-of-factly. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth again, but this time it was a real smile, with a hint of warmth.

Then it faded. "The minute you hurt her all the anger would drain away and the fear would be left, and you'd have cut off your right arm to make her forgive you and make her stop hurting. Fucking bipolar." He tried to laugh again, and failed.

He cleared his throat with a cough that sounded like some circuit breaking deep inside the camera's whirring heart. There was a rush of static over the speakers. "That went on for a week or two, not long, because tension like that never lasts very long before something snaps. I still remember the end of it – the scariest fucking day of my life. And when you've lived with Maureen, that's saying quite a bit." He tried again to laugh, smile, make light of the world, and again he failed, this time with a slight twitch of disgust. He knew he was failing, but he kept trying anyway. His hands moved slowly to the rhythm of a nursery rhyme.

"I don't remember exactly when it was. I think it was cold – but everything was cold then. I think it must have been in February or March." he shrugged again, restlessly. "It doesn't matter. I don't give a damn. I'm sure you know the exact date anyway.

You and Mimi had had a fight the night before, and she'd run off, and you went after her, and brought her back to the loft, around midnight, I think. I got up early that morning; I wanted to get to work especially early because Alexi Darling's a bitch, and she kept threatening to fire me so fast my head would spin if I didn't 'get more serious' about my work." he made a face at the camera that clearly showed what he thought of that threat.

"Anyway, you were up earlier than usual too. I forget why. Something stupid, probably. And we were just sitting there, in the kitchen, talking – probably about something else stupid." He laughed again, and it sounded like a cough and a cry for help and a condemnation. He took his glasses off, ripping them from his nose with unwarranted anger, rubbed them roughly on his shirt, and shoved them back on, no cleaner than before.

"God, everything seems so _stupid_ now, doesn't it?" he asked in awe, his voice trembling and scraped-raw. "Looking back – I can't remember why we did anything, what we said. It was all so pointless in the end." He sniffled, and wiped his nose on his sleeve with a furious, slashing motion. He blinked up at the camera. "In the end," he repeated, still with childish wonder, tinged with bitterness now. "But no, I haven't gotten to the end yet. Not yet. And I have to finish it now." His voice took on a tinge of steely resolution. "I have to. I know you'll remember the rest, but – I have to finish it." His ranting dropped to a hoarse, almost-broken whisper. "There's not much longer now."

He cleared his throat, with a visible effort to pull himself together. "Anyway, we were sitting there, and you were waiting for Mimi to get up because you wanted to do something – take her out, or something, something to make her happy again. You were all drooling and starry-eyed, the way you get sometimes when you think about her. I was waiting for her too, but I didn't want to admit it, even to myself, because your stupid idiot paranoia was damn contagious and it had infected me, too." His hands had become more expressive than his stoic face, twitching and jerking, tapping out complicated piano-rhythms on his knees, then pressing his fingers into steeple, stable, cross, and knot.

"She woke up later than usual," he continued, the trembling in his voice growing slightly more smooth, slightly more steady, "But that was usual then. She tired easily, I remember. And I remember exactly how it was – you were sitting at the counter, I was standing leaning against it, with my gloves on and everything, pretending like I was just about to walk out the door. I'd already been standing there like that for a half hour, at least. And then your door opened, and of course we both dropped our stupid casual act and stared, and she just walked right out into the loft, just like that. I glanced at her and went to leave, cause I knew your paranoia was stupid and I was trying to convince myself that she was fine, because then it would be easier to convince you. Maybe you saw something I didn't – maybe you saw the way she was shaking, how pale she was. I don't know. All I know is that when she fainted, you were there to catch her and I was halfway out the door."

He swallowed, gulping down a deep breath with a visible motion. "I might not even have turned around," he said shakily. "I might have just kept on walking, kept right on going out and went on with my day. I didn't hear a thing – but then you made this sound, almost like you were trying to scream but didn't have the time, or like you were trying to cry but didn't have the strength. And of course I was all tense, nervous as hell, and I heard this little whimper and I turned around –" he broke off with a ragged sigh, blinked and made a visible effort to catch his breath. A grimace emerged on his face, as though he had been punched in the gut.

"I sort of glanced around, looking for you where I'd last seen you, at my height. I didn't see you just glancing around – then I saw you on the floor, and I swear my heart stopped." He had to pause, worming his fingers under his glasses to dab at the wetness there. "And if you want to know the truth," he almost-whispered, "It still hasn't started back up again."

He gulped down a deep breath, making a visible effort to fortify himself. "But that's not important," he panted, his expression betraying his concentration, his determination to keep from breaking down. "You know how that feels, I don't have to explain it to you. You know how fucking terrifying that was. Or maybe you don't – of the two of us, I was the one who panicked. You were pretty calm. At least, it seemed that way to me. You were the one who moved Mimi onto the couch, you were talking to me, trying to keep us both from screaming. It worked – at least you kept me away from Mimi so I didn't try to shake her awake or anything stupid like that. God knows I would have tried." He rubbed his face with his hands, surreptitiously brushing away tears. "She was only out for a few minutes, I think – at least, that's what you told me later. Longest fucking minutes of my life. But once she woke up, she was the calmest out of all of us – it seems almost funny now, that we were freaking out and fussing over her and I remember the way she just looked at us, just gave us this look like 'Come on, guys, how much do you think that's going to do?'"

"And she was right. It didn't do anything, but we wasted at least a god-damn hour on it anyway. And she just kept telling us, over and over again, 'I'm fine. I lost my balance for a minute, I'm fine.' And you had this look on your face – it was that same blank scary-as-shit mask of yours, but every time she told us she was fine you got this look in your eye, you knew that was bullshit and so did she. I was the only one naïve enough to believe it even for a minute. So I was the one who ended up sitting on the floor next to couch, trying to stay sane enough to talk to her, while you locked yourself in your room and cried. That was the first time I had seen you cry since April, but it sure as hell wasn't the last. After that, it became a common sort of thing – one of us would excuse ourselves from whatever we were doing, disappear into the bathroom or go outside, and come back out of breath, with our eyes all red."

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_Your eyes…_

Roger woke with a start, torn from a light doze and dream of summer suns and emptiness, catapulted back into wakefulness so suddenly that the ache of exhaustion that clenched his muscles struck him like a blow. He blinked at the darkness of the room around him, bleary and disoriented, trying to discover what had woken him so violently in the relatively quiet night.

It took him a few minutes before the noise penetrated, the harsh, ragged, painful coughing that tore the star-studded silence, the gasps for breath that made his lungs ache in sympathy. He blinked again, hands reaching out instinctively, his lips parting slightly as he tried to grasp Mimi's hand, to stroke her hair, to hold her in his arms and tell her it would be okay, it would be okay, it would be okay…

But his hands grasped only air, his half-formed whispers were lost on the midnight darkness, and it took him at least five minutes to realize that the coughing was distant, was creeping under the door to his bedroom, that there was no trembling form stretched out next to him, no sweating hands in his. The realization jarred him; he rolled over and sat up, startled, scowling at the room all around him as though expecting it to explain to him why he was not stretched out on the floor beside the couch, where he had been for the past three days, clutching Mimi's hand.

Memory crept slowly to the forefront of his mind, made foggy by the utter exhaustion that had plagued him for days. Mark had spoken to him; Mark had shouted at him, had pulled him up off the floor, had physically torn him away from Mimi's limp form, had thrown him into his room and ordered him to sleep. Mark had been growing increasingly agitated for weeks, and looking back on it, Roger realized that his outburst had been exactly that; an outburst, a moment of hysteria that had driven him to do the only thing he could have done, to help ease his friend's suffering in any way he could.

The knowledge made Roger pause for a moment, made him shudder with a deep sense of guilt in the pit of stomach. He almost considered following Mark's frantic instructions; then another fit of coughing reached his ears, and he was on his feet and out in the main room of the loft before he had known he was going to move. He suddenly found himself standing in the middle of a vast darkness, plunged into an icy cold that seemed strangely out of place in the February night.

"Mimi?" He asked softly, almost frightened of speaking too loudly, afraid of what he would hear answering back to him, what echoes his voice would wake. "Mimi?" His eyes scanned the darkness, and he crossed the loft to the couch, feeling as though he waded through some dark mire or dream. "Are you all right?"

He knelt down beside the pale form stretched out in the moonlight, and as soon as his knees touched the floor, he felt himself relax – not totally, for fear still haunted his every thought, but he was no longer tensed to the point of breaking. This was where he was supposed to be, here, at her side, and he could not survive long anywhere else.

He watched her face, watched as her large, dark eyes opened and focused on him, confusion stirring in their depths, her hand moving along the couch's edge, searching for his. "What're you doing here?" she near-whispered, voice hoarse and trembling. "Mark –" another fit of coughing overcame her, and she trailed off into silence, shaking violently, whimpering in pain. Cursing under his breath, Roger glanced across the couch; eyes narrowed in silent calculation, he looked at how small it was, how Mimi curled in on herself and left no room for him to comfort her. He waited until the coughing had subsided; then, when she lay still and gasping in the moonlight, he reached out and gathered her up into his arms, gently, carefully rearranging his grip so as not to brush the lesions like bruises against her pale skin. He lifted her up, slowly, gritting his teeth at how light she was, at how weak her arms were as they went around his neck; his eyes never leaving her flushed face, he carried her back into the bedroom, shoving the door open with his shoulder and kicking it shut again.

He laid her down on the ancient mattress with infinite care and crawled in beside her, letting out a pent-up sigh as he found himself finally able to wrap his arms around her as he had been longing to, finally able to bury his face in her hair and hold her to him so tightly it was as though he would never let go.

"I want you to go to the hospital in the morning," he whispered into her ear, closing his eyes so tight that starbursts exploded behind them, holding back tears; but she had already slipped away into sleep.

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"It wasn't long after that," Mark said slowly, "That the nightmares started."

He cleared his throat and stared blankly at the camera. For the first time since the film reels had flickered to life in the camera's belly, his eyes were dry. His expression had changed again now, into something resembling detachment, concentration as he tried to dredge up some long-forgotten memory. "After that day when she fainted, you went almost stark-raving mad," he recalled calmly. "For a week or two, you were constantly moving – stomping around the loft, breaking things, slamming doors, like you would rip the world to pieces if you could. Occasionally you'd disappear, run out of the loft like you had hellhounds at your heels and go out and walk for three blocks, muttering to yourself. I thought it was because you were afraid, because you felt pent-up and trapped, the way I did, that Time and death had gripped you and would never let you go. I don't know what you felt. But I know you walked around for a few weeks looking like you would punch in the face of the next guy to glance at you funny. It was that same kind of animal rage that you sometimes had coming off drugs.

Except around Mimi, of course. It was fucking amazing – one minute you'd be railing, slamming your fists into the walls, roaring like a wounded animal and in would come Mimi, and you'd deflate in an instant, and suddenly you walked so quietly the floorboards didn't even creak, you'd speak so softly it was hard to hear you, and you touched her the way you would touch some priceless thing of glass, afraid that if you applied too much pressure, she would break. She never noticed your fucking homicidal rage – I don't know if it was because you were careful to keep it hidden from her, or if she was just too lost in her own world to realize it. I don't know. But it hurt – I don't know why, but it hurt to see you wilt every time you saw her, it hurt me to see the way you hovered over her, almost afraid to go near her, afraid she would shatter. I could see it in the way you moved, how careful you tried to be around her. She saw it too – she used to give you this wry little smile, like she was laughing at it – 'over-attentive', I think she called you – but she let you fuss and worry over her nonetheless."

"Then she started having nightmares – she'd wake up in the middle of the night, screaming, sobbing, clutching your arms so hard we'd find nail marks on your wrists in the morning. It was always the same dream, she told us, always the same – she'd be falling away from us, falling down into some kind of icy darkness and screaming up at us to help her, and we'd just be standing there, watching, getting further and further away. She was suddenly terrified of small, dark places – she would close her eyes in the stairwell, hang onto you for dear life whenever we got in a cab. And the dreams kept getting worse – until it wasn't just once a night, but once every few hours, until you started sitting up with her at night and sleeping during the day. Finally we had to move her out onto the sofa, because she said the room you two slept in was too small and reminded her of that tunnel.

After that, you started disappearing more often – you'd wait until she was asleep and you'd bolt from the loft, running for your life to get outside. After the first couple of times, I followed you – I watched you turn down some random dark alley and start picking up the trash there, beer bottles, soda cans, and smashing them against the walls, breaking the bottles open until you cut your hands, screaming at the junk as you kicked it with all your might. I just stood there, watching – watching you scream at the world for hurting her, until you burned up all the anger and stood still there, staring at your bleeding hands, and sobbing."

Mark took a deep breath, still maintaining a degree of calm detachment. He was straining to keep his mask in place, fighting to keep from noticing the pain that made itself evident in the way he bit his lip, the way he adjusted the camera with shaking hands. In the dark pane of glass behind his head, it started to snow. "There was only one time I saw you use that crazy anger around her," he recalled slowly, "Only one time I ever saw you yell at her – or, hell, speak to her in anything much louder than a whisper.

It had been a bad night. She'd been dreaming again, almost constantly, until we ended up in the living room at one in the morning, all three of us, me sitting on the window-ledge and filming the homeless people in the streets, you two wrapped around each other on the couch. I still have that tape – never used it, barely ever looked at it again. Just a grimy windowpane, flashes of the sky too dark to see, and the occasional quick shot of you and Mimi pressed against each other, her head on your chest, almost half-asleep as you whispered in her ear."

He smiled sadly, his eyes widening in surprise at this contortion. He lifted one long white hand to his mouth, as though to learn what this strange new expression felt like. The wind blew the snow sideways onto the window like a clatter of stars. "I don't know how it started, mostly because I felt stupid filming you two when you were like that, I felt like I was intruding on something that was none of my business, so I filled two hours of film with the lights in the building across the street. But I remember your voice got louder, almost loud enough to hear; Mimi answered you, and started to cough. I turned around then, but you were up, pacing, your hands behind your back, and she was sitting on the couch with her arms wrapped around herself." His eyes were closed, his mouth a thin, grim line as he painted the picture before the camera as it must have appeared behind his eyes. "You were pale, you were scared shitless, I could see it in your face; and she just sat there, shivering and coughing, and you pounding back and forth waiting for it to stop. And she finally caught her breath; and you exploded, almost shouting at her but not quite, and I just sat there, not moving. I remember thinking that the windowpane had frozen solid and frozen me with it because I wanted to get up and stop you but I couldn't, I couldn't move.

And you kept yelling, barely coherent, mostly making no sense, and we watched you, me and Mimi, we just stared at you until you wore yourself out – and then, at the end of your little outburst, you were standing there, panting, staring down at her with fists clenched and tears in your eyes. And you said the first understandable sentence you'd said all night – 'We're going to the hospital in the morning.' You were crying, you stood there tense like you were fighting some monumental battle, and you repeated that, over and over. 'We're going to the hospital in the morning.' And she just looked at you and shook her head, barely moving, but suddenly you were gasping like she'd knocked the breath out of you. And you – you fell to your knees. You were begging her. _Begging_ her. And that – that cut me to the bone. You'd kicked my ass multiple times, you'd been angry at the world your entire life, you'd been solitary and stupid and strong, and here you were, on your knees, begging Mimi with all your heart to go someplace that wasn't cold, to find a nice white bed to die in."

No sooner had the words passed his lips than he clamped his hand over his mouth, looking shocked at his own morbidity. After a moment he pulled his hand away and looked at the pianist's fingers, as though expecting to see some foul stain of reality on the skin.

"I shouldn't have said that," he muttered, remorseful. "Shouldn't have – I'm getting carried away. Getting caught up in it. I promised myself –" He stared reproachfully at his fingers, as though blaming them for his slip. Then he glanced up at the camera, his face apologetic.

"I'm sorry, Roger," he announced, speaking to the lens as though it was a living thing, a mirror to the soul he was trying to reach. "I promised myself that I wouldn't get caught in the morbidity of it – the heartache – I'm sorry. This isn't what this tape is supposed to be about. It isn't –" he rubbed his hands across his face, a weary gesture. "I'll edit this part out later, maybe," he mumbled into his fingers. "At any rate, it'll be better from here on in. I promised myself I'd share the best memories – not the worst." He closed his eyes and lifted a hand to his face, pushing his glasses up towards his forehead to pinch the bridge of his nose where they usually sat. The muscles of his face were clenched as he gritted his teeth, searching.

A sudden sad smile lit up his face, and he dropped his hand. "There was this one time – I remember we went to Central Park. It must have been in March, because it was pretty warm – unseasonably warm. And Mimi was feeling better, so we decided to get her out of the loft, to get us all out of the loft, to go do something that wouldn't cost any money. So we dragged you out of bed earlier than usual, me and Mimi, and dragged you down to the park before you were awake enough to know where we were going. We had a sort of picnic there – meaning we brought our one remaining box of Cap'n Crunch with us, ate half of it, and fed the rest to the ducks. I remember how much like a little girl Mimi was – she was looking around at anything like she'd never seen it before." He clamped his mouth shut almost mid-word, barely managing to squeak out the last syllable before he snapped his teeth together, clearly struggling to hold back the cynical addendum he had been about to voice. There was brief inner struggle and he relaxed, smiling again. "That was probably the first time I'd seen you smile in weeks. And you still were too damn careful around Mimi, but she just laughed at you – and you started laughing, too. A god-damn miracle. And I remember –"

He paused for a moment, a childlike wonder gleaming in his eyes. He suddenly looked like a puppy dog, a little boy, a creature small and fragile and breathless. "I remember she was standing at the edge of this hill, looking down at a little lake, and you snuck up behind her and covered her eyes – like you used to." He grinned, lost in the thralls of remembering. "And she didn't bother to guess who it was, she just pulled your hands off and turned around and kissed you, surprised you so much you fell – and the two of you were rolling in the grass, laughing when you managed to tear yourselves apart long enough to come up for air."

He grinned wide and fully, with the first real warmth he had shown. The manic tenseness in his shoulders relaxed, and he was leaning back in his chair, no longer held rigid like some porcelain mannequin posed in glorious contrast to the dark midnight sky. His eyes were glazed in memory; the pain, the cynicism, all had been washed away in a surge of half-forgotten joy. Something flashed silver almost offscreen; a jagged crack in the window had been caught by a beam of light, and jabbed a needle-bolt of light into the picture. The snow had stopped, and behind Mark's head, through the grimy windowpane, the sun was rising.

He remained in remembered rapture for a few moments more; when he opened his eyes again, the joy faded in mild bewilderment, and he looked at the camera as though it had said something that perplexed him. "What's that reflection…" he murmured. His hand rose to briefly caress something unseen. Realization struck, and his eyes widened; he turned in his chair, looking out at the fiery dawn as though it was something he hadn't seen before.

"Wow," he sighed under his breath, then turned back to the camera with a rueful smile. "Sorry for dragging it out so long," he muttered. "Took longer than I thought – Roger'd be mad at me if he knew I'd stayed up all night making this stupid tape. And it's not done – tonight, again, I promise. There's more left to tell – tonight." He reached up and touched something that clicked at his caress. The camera let out a dusty whine and, capturing one last frame of his smiling face and sun-dazzled eyes, darkness fell.

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	3. To Fade

There was a shuddering, whining click, and the camera coughed to life. The picture was only darkness, but somewhere in the distance came the distinctive sound of a door slamming. Then a veil was lifted from the lens. Again the grimy window, again the midnight New York skyline, again the bleached-blond hair and big blue eyes staring into the lens with a wild determination. Mark had lost the easy acceptance with which he had last spoken to the silent reels of film. Only a day had passed, yet it had burdened him again with all the tenseness, all the anguish he had shed in his hours of electronic confession. Only a day had passed, and his shoulders were tense again, his teeth gritted, his hands clenched, his eyes angry. He stepped into the picture with a childish stomping step and collapsed onto the windowsill, not even bothering to pull up a chair; yet he seemed to relax all of a sudden as his eyes caught the camera, as he locked eyes with the silent witness that waited, quiet, dusty, dark.

"Hello again," Mark said, and his voice was hoarse and weary. "Sorry for my abrupt exit last night – trying to get away from Roger's ever-watchful eye." His own eyes rolled, accenting the barely-present good-natured sarcasm in his tone. "Caught hell for it anyway. He didn't hear me, though – small miracle." He cocked his head slightly, examining the camera from a new angle. "Where was I?"

He paused a moment, a small smile emerging on his face. It was tense and angular, his words guttural and harsh. "Stupid question. I know exactly where I was. Couldn't forget, can't forget – damn." He lifted his hands to his eyes, slipping his fingers under his glasses to press at his eyelids. "Sorry," he mumbled again. "'m barely coherent, I know – didn't sleep last night. But then, you know that." He looked up for a moment, scowled, then pushed his glasses up to his forehead, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes for a long moment of silence. "Sorry. Sorry…"

He cleared his throat and looked up, his eyes red-rimmed and dull. "Yeah. I've been thinking about this all day – what to say next, what to put into this crazy little memory of mine and what to keep out, what to forget." He paused and let his gaze drift, away from the lens. His eyes eventually came to rest dreamily on something outside of the camera's sight, outside the small dim frame. His hands slackened, and he remembered.

"There was the day that Collins showed up," he recalled slowly. "He'd been gone for six months, doing whatever the hell it was he was doing – he didn't tell us much anymore – probably getting himself kicked out of some other college. God knows what. At any rate, he came home sometime in April –" he broke off suddenly, a slightly manic grin flashing across his face. "April. Isn't that – weird? That whole month I kept thinking about April. About Mimi and April... about Mimi dying in April. April is the cruelest month. I was so stark-raving mad by then that I kept thinking about, and laughing. Roger almost strangled me." This reflection seemed to sober him again, and the wild grin disappeared. "Anyway. Collins came home, burst into the loft bellowing at the top of his lungs, 'Hey, bitches, I'm home!'. He was laughing." There was a pause of heavy breathing. "I can still remember the look on his face."

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"Hey there, bitches! I'm home!"

The loft door slammed open with a deafening crash, shaking a cloud of splinters loose from the rotting frame. Collins came charging through the screen of dust, broad shoulders and dazzling white smile bursting out of the hallway darkness into the sunlit loft. "Mark! Roger!" he bellowed into the silent emptiness, dropping the heavy bags he carried in both arms and letting his hands drop to his sides, limp and lifeless. He waited for a moment; when there was no response, he crossed his arms over his chest, glaring indignantly at the closed doors across the room. "So I don't even get a welcome home from my boys?"

One of the doors swung open, slowly, as though in grudging acknowledgement to his echoing demands, and a tousled blonde head emerged; blurry blue eyes blinked up at him, and Mark was dashing across the loft, habitual scarf trailing out behind him, smashing into Collins and embracing him with a child's eager energy.

"Now that's more like it," Collins chuckled, pushing Mark out to arm's length and examining him; he had time only to note the weary grin and dark circles under the other man's eyes before he found himself gripped by the coat-sleeves and dragged out into the hallway, back the way he had come.

"Mark, what…?" but the door slammed behind him, cutting off his faint protest as Mark pressed his ear to the rusted metal, listening with bated breath. A moment of silence passed; Mark relaxed and turned around to face his friend, slumped against the unyielding door.

"Welcome home, Collins!" Mark said gaily, as though he found it not at all odd that he had just shut himself out of his own home and was now talking to his friend in the dark, dusty hall. "What've you been doing for the past six months? Got yourself kicked out of any other schools? You look good." His eyes narrowed, and he looked the big black man up and down. "Been taking your AZT? I swear, you and Roger –"

"Mark." Collins held up a hand to stem the rush of words, scowling in bewilderment. "Care to tell me why you've kicked the both of us out and stranded us in the god-damn hallway?"

"Hmm? Oh. Yeah." Mark's hands, which had been hanging limply at his sides, lifted and began pulling, tugging at his scarf with a sudden rapid nervousness. The exhausted smile that he had plastered on faded, and Collins found himself staring into a face that more resembled a skeleton than any friend he had ever known. "About that – Mimi was sleeping. And, Collins, I should warn you –"

"Mark?"

The door slid back with a rasping groan and Roger appeared in the gap, his hair mussed and sticking up in all directions, his eyes clouded, his face gaunt and pale. He seemed to stir from himself as his eyes distinguished the second shape in the shadows; "Collins!" he cried, and lurched forward to embrace the other man. Collins gritted his teeth as he felt Roger's bones jab into him through his skin, and when Roger pulled away he was left with the feeling that his friend had somehow diminished, grown smaller and less alive since he had been gone.

"Roger, man, you feeling okay?" he asked, eyes narrowed, a chill creeping up his spine as he imagined the end to Mark's unfinished warning.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah, I'm fine." Roger was barely listening, stealing a glance over his shoulder at the gleaming loft, awash in midmorning light. He pulled the door further open, motioning for them to enter. "What are you guys doing in the hallway? Come on in, Collins! What's new?"

Collins only smiled, noting out of the corner of his eye Mark glaring at Roger with a questioning glance, and Roger's gentle nod of reassurance. "I should be asking you guys that," he muttered, but allowed Mark to drag him back into the loft, chattering in a high-pitched, senseless wash of sound that meant he was trying his best not to give something away.

There was a faint sound from the next room, barely audible over the pounding of the city beyond the window, but Roger and Mark both froze in mid-step, heads jerking up, listening with a slightly panicked shared glance. Mark made a short, chopping gesture with his hand, and Roger nodded, stealing a regretful glance at Collins before darting into his bedroom and slamming the door shut.

"What the hell has gotten _into_ you two?" Collins demanded angrily. "I swear, if the two of you don't –" but he was cut off mid-admonition, as the door to Roger's room swung open again, and the musician emerged, walking softly and stiffly and clutching Mimi's hand.

"Oh," Collins breathed, feeling his eyes widen at the sight of her, struck suddenly by the sense that he had had the wind knocked out of him. "That's why…"

"Collins!" Mimi cried weakly, a tremulous smile breaking out on her pale face, and Collins suddenly found her in his arms, his hands on her shoulders, holding her gently, carefully, finding himself instinctively afraid that if he exerted too much pressure on her fragile frame, she would break.

"Hey, Mimi," he breathed, feeling a thrill of fear in the pit of his stomach as he noticed how very, very thin and cold she was, how he felt as though he held a fleeting shadow in his arms. She was leaning heavily into his embrace, as though she lacked the strength to stand on her own; and though the dark, clouded haze of fear in his mind had long ago realized what had scared Roger and Mark so badly, the conscious thought for the first time entered his mind that Mimi was dying.

His arms tightened around her in response to that unbidden thought, and it was only with great reluctance that he finally let her go, holding her gently with one hand on her shoulder until Roger darted in to wrap an arm around her waist. Roger offered Collins a sad smile before pressing his lips to Mimi's hair, whispering feverishly in her ear; Collins felt iron bands constricting around his throat, felt compelled to turn away from the heartrending image they made against the rising sun. He glanced over at Mark, swallowing down a sudden burning in his throat, noting the gentle, quietly heartbreaking smile that haunted his friend's eyes as he stared at Roger and Mimi. Collins felt a wild white rush of hysteria thrill in him, the urge to scream, to cry, to roar; then a rush of memories, a sense of familiarity that cut him to the bone, and he was laughing with tears in his eyes as he stepped forward and pulled Mimi from Roger's embrace, twirling her around in an impromptu dance. "Hey, there, girl, give me a proper greeting! How's my angel been?"

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Mark spoke as he breathed, slowly, ponderously. "He was laughing, the bastard, came barging into the loft bellowing to the world that he was home – and Mimi was sleeping, had been sleeping a lot lately, so I panicked and dragged him out of the loft – he didn't know, he didn't know, I'd forgotten that he didn't know and was mad at him for a crazy second or two because I'd forgotten he didn't know and I thought he was trying to stir up trouble, trying to pull some crazy stunt. Then I saw his face – he was utterly bewildered, and a little scared, and I came to my senses. But it was too late, he'd woken her up – and Roger had this crazy gleam in his eye, that wild protective rage like he was afraid Collins would hurt her, afraid he'd accidentally break her because she was so fragile and he didn't understand how bad she really was. But he did understand – all it took was one look at her and he understood, he realized right away that she was dying."

He cocked his head to the side again, eyes narrowing as he looked at the world through a slightly skewed perception and decided he liked it. His tongue darted out to moisten his lips and for a moment he looked like a toddler, like a little boy examining the universe and passing judgment on it, liking it because it was big and pretty and sparkled at night-time. Then he returned to himself with a snap of adjusted perception, and his hands fell limp into his lap, nimble white spiders dead of some bizarre plague.

"And that's … all," he said softly, wonderingly. "That's all. All that was important, anyway. Maureen and Joanne, they weren't a part of it, not really – it's not their fault. They tried to be, tried to come over and talk to her, talk to us, but they weren't a part of it. You have to understand – they were starting over and they were new and fresh and happy, and sadness couldn't find a hold in them, not really. They were sad – of course they were sad – Maureen was crying, but –" The hands twitched back to life again, cupping air between the palms, flexing the fingers as though hoping to squeeze his meaning from the air, wring some panacea of a word from the darkness that would explain the wild images in his head. "Of course they were sad. They loved Mimi, they cried for her, they hugged her and told her she would be with Angel soon. But it didn't – it didn't _kill _them. _Touch _them." He lifted a hand to his chest now, pressing it ineffectually, bruisingly, over his heart. He flattened his fingers over the material of his shirt and it looked as if someone had splashed moonlight there, carelessly, effortlessly. "They didn't _feel _with Mimi the way Roger and I did. They didn't die with her. No, Maureen and Joanne weren't a part of it – they loved each other too much." Again the rapid paralysis seized his hands and they fell down to clutch nervously at his knees as he paused for breath.

"And Benny – he wasn't a part of it either, I didn't expect him to be. But he gave us heat, the sanctimonious bastard –" a faint smile stretched his pale, dry lips – "He didn't dare shut off our heat, electricity. He gave us that much. A parting gift, a mercy blow. Whatever you want to call it. The villain comes through in the end." He shrugged. "So it was warm, those days – the kind of sharp, cold days left over from winter, like the winter itself's been broken into pieces and the shards are still in the air, like a knife in the chest, breathing in. The city was a god-damn ice heap, but we had heat – didn't matter much. We were cold, all of us were still cold –" The hand lifted again, this time to clutch at his stomach rather than his heart, a mute indication. "There was ice, down in the pit of my stomach – hell, in my soul – was frozen because Mimi wouldn't stop shivering. She was cold, then; don't know how she could be, with all our blankets and you, Roger, constantly wrapped around her, but she would just lay there, pale and fragile and shivering like some porcelain doll caught in a snowstorm. And you – goddamn you, Roger – you were singing."

He laughed, a quick convulsion of the shoulders, surreptitiously brushing away the tears in his eyes. "Do you remember? You were singing – sometimes her song, and sometimes not – you were singing, and she was always cold, always tired – right up until the very last day."

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There was a drifting upwards, a floating out of sleep, a faint twitching and a pull of protest. He felt that there was light beyond the darkness, air beyond the vacuum, sound beyond the silence; but he was frightened, and he pulled back, tried to clutch at the nothingness around him and drown in the darkness between the stars.

It was no use. Roger woke up; he was dragged back to reality, breathing harshly, his body bathed in sweat as though it had been a really physical struggle, his wrestle with the dark and unconscious. He felt a sharp pain in his chest, and coughed, trying to rid himself of the fire in his lungs; it took him a moment, his mind clouded by the clinging, dangling threads of sleep, to realize that the burn was not in his lungs but in his heart.

He breathed in a great choking gasp and held his breath; he could hear the pattering tapping rhythm of rain on the roof, could hear the syncopated half-measures as well as the echoes of faraway times when it would have inspired him to write a song. He closed his eyes; he listened to the rain drumming, listened but did not hear the gentle breathing beside him and the heartbeat that had shifted to mirror his own. Beneath the rain, all was silence. And he turned over, sat up and looked beside him with an almost-unconscious riff of music squeezing itself between his teeth, because the emotion had to find some way to spill over, and he had the choice between singing or screaming.

Mimi was curled up next to him, her arms wrapped around her knees, looking as though she was trying to make herself so small as to disappear; most of the blankets Roger and Mark owned had been wrapped about her, but had been torn open and kicked away over the course of the night, and she lay pale and still, and a half-delirious thought crossed Roger's mind that she looked like rain.

He did not notice the way her shoulders shook slightly, or her hands twitching restlessly in her sleep, all he knew was that the rain was ringing in his ears and because of its constant repeating riff he could not hear her breathing. The thought inflamed every fiber of his soul, it squeezed a sharp dagger into his brain, into his heart, and he felt every inch of his skin crawl and a wild white hysteria flare up in his mind as panic kindled in the pit of his stomach.

"Mark," he howled, his hands drifting towards her, then jerking away as if scorched by some electrical current, "Mark! Markmarkmarkmark…"

Her eyes fluttered open, her hand twitched to life and crawled across the blanket seeking his; but he had been spooked, he had panicked, and Mark realized as he burst through the door and took the scene in that the hysteria would have to be let to run its course. Mimi sharpened, some of the fog clearing from her eyes, and gripped Roger's shoulder with both hands, pulling herself up to press against him, to hold him as gasped wildly as though drowning, mourning her death.

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"You knew it was the last day." the numb detachment had fled from Mark's voice, and there was a hint of something warm and almost loving in his tone. "You had some kind of dream, maybe, or a premonition. I don't know. But you woke up before her that day, and saw her asleep, and panicked – started screaming my name, started rocking back and forth, not crying, but gasping like you'd had the wind knocked out of you. Even when she woke up, you were still a little insane – it took a while to calm you down, but even then there was fear in your eyes and you and I both knew it. Everything was perfect, everything was just as you'd known it would be, deep down in that bizarre little corner of our soul that knows the things we don't want to acknowledge we know. Ignorance is bliss."

An inaudible sigh escaped on the end of the last words, and Mark's rigid mask loosened. His whole body relaxed, as though something at his core had become unclenched. His hands uncurled from fists and lay flat on his knees, his shoulders slumped, and when he spoke it was distant and came easily, like rain. "It was a gray day, one of those rainstorms where everything is blurred just a little bit – where the rain is just loud enough to hide the sense of people's words, when everything is just sort of a low murmur, an ocean thrum, and there are streaks of crystal down the window, and the whole sky is bent light so that the world draws in small and close and just a little cold, right next to your skin. It's the kind of storm that you could really, truly believe that rain comes from the ocean, because the whole day is cold and vast and murmuring."

He closed his eyes, remembering, and a tear seeped down his cheek, reminiscent of that distant rain. "And after your hysterics when you woke up that morning, I remember – you picked her up, still with that damn cautious flinching of yours, still afraid she was fragile, you picked her up and carried her out into the loft. And you stood in the doorway for a moment, hesitating, because there wasn't enough room for both of you on the couch and you didn't want to put her on the table, it would bring back too many god-damned memories; so you laid her down on the floor, too fucking gentle, and sat there next to her, with her head in your lap, your fingers in her hair." He swallowed, crying openly now, though he allowed no rough hiccup or sob to mar the soft rhythm of his voice. "And we had heat, because Benny's a god-damn bastard, we had heat and it was cold outside so the window was all misted up, and it was warm and I just sat there watching you two for hours, because you were beautiful. The two of you together, your fingers, intertwined, against that backdrop of smoke and rain – a photographer's delirious dream. I could see –" and the now the seed of something intimate and raw appeared in the glint of his eye, in a downturned corner of his mouth, "I could _see_ you, both of you, down to the core – could see your crazy restless fidgeting, could see this kind of insane, fundamental peace that spread through her, that she radiated to you, wherever you touched. And I could see that irrational peace, that blind sort of acceptance, spreading through you – how first your shoulders got still, then your eyes, your hands last because you were touching her face and you didn't want to stop."

There was a faint smile on his face now, and it was like the sun that had not reemerged that day. "And the two of you were still, and the rain was still beating on the window, and my heart was beating with it. I remember wondering if yours were, too. And time sort of – stopped, or sped up – your eyes were closed, you were _with_ her somehow, and the sun never came out again that day. We must have been sitting there for hours, but I remember it like a photograph – a second, a flash, then nothing. Too soon. Too god-damn soon."

Again the tears. Mark lifted his head from where he had been staring at his hands, he fixed his gaze on the camera and stared into it with burning eyes. He cried, and a flash of a smile flitted across his face and was gone; and when he spoke his voice was clear and deep and penetrating, like the ringing of a bell.

"It was too soon. And Roger, you were singing – and just as you finished the final note, when the sound was fading away, Mimi died."

There was silence. Mark stared at the camera, his eyes blazing, his mouth still hanging slightly open as though he had not finished speaking, as though there was more to say, more that the plain, simple pronouncement could not encompass. But the echoes of his words died away, and he looked down, at the hands that lay dead, palm-up, in his lap.

"I won't tell you what happened after," he said, and for the first time his voice was shaking and he cried openly, willingly, trembling with sobs. "I won't tell you what we said that night, what was the message we left on Maureen and Joanne's machine. I won't tell you the look on Collins' face, or what Roger screamed that night on the roof, hating the city, hating the world. I won't tell you what Allison's voice sounded like when we called Benny and his stupid fucking wife picked up." His voice had become harsh and quick and ragged, pounding with a new rhythm in his rage, his whole body shaking. Then he closed his eyes, and again his entire body relaxed, he slumped back into his chair. "Won't tell you that," he murmured, eyes still closed, breathing deeply. "That's sacred, that shouldn't be spoken, not yet, not so soon. Roger, you'll remember – or maybe you won't, you might have let the whole thing fade, let yourself press it down into some mist of grief. I know I did, for a while, but if you don't remember I don't want you to. Whatever can be gained by going through that again – isn't, will never be as much as what could be lost."

He looked up at the camera again, and this time his eyes were not blazing, but the tears had refracted life and made them brilliant. "Goodbye, Mimi," he breathed, and he was mouthing a prayer. "Goodbye. I loved you – _love _you. Roger still burns for you, his entire soul straining for you, screaming for you. He hasn't died yet – he hasn't broken his promise yet, hasn't broken the oath that we all swore him to at one time or another, that he would keep living. He screams your name every night, the deepest parts of his heart are straining so hard to follow you that it looks sometimes like it's an effort just for him to keep breathing, but he always does. He loves you, he will always love you with all of his heart and soul, and he is willing to do for you what he could never do for April – live for you. He was always ready to die for her, he believed himself half-dead anyway, but he is going to _live_ for you. He won't lose hope. I won't let him. _We_ won't let him." Mark leaned forward, and every syllable burned, every word blazed itself into the camera's heart.

"We love you," he said slowly, resoundingly. "It's been hell on earth for three days since you left, it hurts to breathe, but god-damn it all we're going to keep breathing, because you loved us and we didn't deserve it, any of us. And Roger will dream about you every night, and he and Collins will be with you soon, and all of you – you and them and Angel –" he was forced to stop, his shoulders convulsing with sobs, to regain his breath. And when he looked up again his gaze was gentler, and his voice was hoarse and loving and low.

"Goodbye, Mimi," he said simply. "Consider this my – farewell, my gift, my way of never forgetting and never letting Roger forget. Consider this my way –" a brief and heartrending smile lit his face, and his hand moved towards the lens, "—Consider this my way of reaffirming my faith in angels."

His voice faded into silence, there was the click of memories closing up and dying away.

Darkness fell.


End file.
